Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-10-13
CORRESPONDENCE.
lBy DR.. F. B. Robinson.l

true that every person going to Europe
to study-and especially medicine lis
sure to pursue his work in some German
university. To-day it is a common re-
port for large newspaper to announce
with big black header that pastor A. or
DIR. B. or Mr. or Miss G. has quit work
for years study in Germany, or that
land of science and literature, and
teachers in the greatest of earth's uni
versities whose mighty influence has
extended over seas and continents like
the branches of the spreading oak to
the air or the ramiications of telegraph
wires in thickly populated district, yet
each branch depends on root for its
source as each telegraph line must de-
pend on some central office, these many
branches and Vulnerable lines repre-
sent so many individuals widening and
confirming the influential power of these
celebrated institutions. They are the
accumulated product of long ages, the
tried schools of the deepest thinkers
and most searching Investigators. They
are the survival of the fttest. 1t is graft
flying to perceive that the most progress
sive have quiet, silent admiration
for such institutions. But one must
stop work though apparently under
favorable conditions and prospective
financial success to learn something
useful and practical in the slow plodding
German school. They plod like one
going up stairs each step is nseful as
the foundation and necessity of its
successor. When one arrives on the
upper floor he can perceive with en-
HANGED pleasure new fields regardless of
the fear of error or fall from deficiency
of the understructure in the mental
building. Every man is his own builder.
Architects are well aware that good
building well built of solid graneit out
lasts in usefulness and time many hasty
built frame ones full of knot holes, rats
and disappointments. But the question
frequently arises from friends, why
does one 60 to Germany second time?
like the slippery things of earth may
never return again? Why leave things
of apparent certainty for merely ftful
prospective ones which may not even
have the baseless fabric of vision?
This prospective brain capital may not
leave trace of success behind as big as
the mark left in the air by humming
birds flight. The reason for such~ a
Journey is soon answered in simple
words though complicated and unsatis-
factory in analysis. Two little words
tell the continuous story of years of
acknowledgements and PRIDE-Oh vain
stuff you say, oh shameful feelings you
think. The ship that comes will strike
an ice berg and 60 down, the cars which
ride one will break through bridge
and kill. Look man at the nonsense of
vain hope. The ambition to be among
the first in medicine is hope to great
to be thrust ruthlessly into the grave of
future years. Sad indeed would it be to
have the funeral knell of ambition
though vain and ethereal as it may be.
1t is to mans life what the bouy on the
rocks is to the great ship, it guides safely
through the breakers. The pride of pro-
fessed skill is surely more to one than
the fine dust of Ophir, glitter as it may
with the eiderdown Of luxurious aff1u-
ence or glisten with the titled rank of
the wand of power.
The curfew of ambition and pride
shall not toll just now. Hope says yet
little while, in more convenient sea-
son, when the cells of life plod slow and
heavy, when it is burden to work and
the weight of years and whitened locks
fall like wintry SHOWS, then may they
toll the bell and cover up the grave with
willing hands.
change his lot? Has not fate and pre-
destination settled that according to
some? Is it not said that one should
wait with blindfolded eyes the coming
of impulse from fate of which we have
no control and then obey. In short our
efforts are not needed but all action and
destiny is predestined from the first
yea that when the womb of birth closed
it fated all the gifts that we could
have. While it is a happy task of
healthy pleasure to say that this effort
less fate and predestination is a tabled
lie of ancient and modern lazy sinners,
yet nevertheless it is general truth
that mans position in the world is
relatively determined by two things,
mental power and natural circumstances
which are Transmitted and come to Us
through time modified by environments.
The development of the mind is less
dependent on fate than the body-pure
effort alone will develop mind and brain
power-that which above all earthly
possessions is priced by men. Of course
to a certain extent originality and
mental grasp must have family
pedigree like the Beechers and Crosbys
Rut ba who is gifted with mental mower